This is a story about a computer. But it’s actually a lesson.

He had looked so tired that last time I had seen him, 4 years ago. His characteristic joy and “make it look easy” attitude were swept away by responsibilities; deep bags under the eyes, stress and lack of sleep showing in.

But now, here he was – joyful, free, relaxed, burdens gone, as if the past 5 years had been erased. His startup bet – many years of hard work, sleepless nights, transatlantic flights and countless meetings – had finally paid up. He was now one of the elite few, the top 1% in Romania. Over a morning croissant, among talking about his exit, gadgets, living abroad, holidays and life in general, he shared some of the habits and lifestyle tricks that had contributed his success.

I did my best to extract reusable life lessons from our chat, taking words out of context and trying to enrich them with my own thoughts and personal interpretation, hoping they’ll help others as well:

[This is a repost from my HackTheDay blog of 6 years ago. But these are rare-to-find tips that are still highly valuable.]

You don’t really need a reason to try out these Mac OSX tips and hacks. But they are fun, probably useful and definitely will get a nice reaction from your friends. They all involve typing some commands in the Terminal.app(each command is followed by the Enter key); if commands start with sudo, you might be asked to also type down your Mac administrator password(which you ought to have set when you first logged to your computer). For instructions on finding Terminal.app and tips on using it, see our great Terminal.app tutorial.

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”

This being the most popular quote is clear proof that people only remember the good and uplifting stories. Also, one of the reasons why “The Alchemist” is dismissed by serious critics who consider it easy reading, a “chicken soup for the soul”-like motivational book.

Way less quoted(80 times less frequently) is this other crucial fragment:

Once upon a time I owned/wrote a pretty popular website/blog on productivity and lifehacking, which was called Hack The Day (don’t look for it, it’s been closed down for years and the domain is now owned by scammers). While starting up, I reached out to popular bloggers. That’s how I succeeded in being the first small blogger published by the hottest blog on habit change, productivity and mindfulness of the decade : “Zen Habits” of Leo Babauta.

I wanted to link to it, but Leo has removed all guest posts from those days. So I managed to recover my article from some long-forgotten archive. I’m posting it here, for your enjoyment : the software-related tips might be obsolete, but the general advice retained its value.

It started innocently – a couple of emails on how much stuff costs back there and how tired I was. I wanted to share with my family and friends the novelty of a new country, in a journal-like fashion. But emails felt intrusive given that not everyone on the list cared about the price of yoghurt in the suburb of Paris I had moved in.